


Be no more.

by theunwantedtheo



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Psychological Trauma, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 01:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14297745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunwantedtheo/pseuds/theunwantedtheo
Summary: Uncertainty has always been something she couldn't handle herself, it was easier to ignore the feelings she knew were raising from somewhere between her stomach and her lungs.Yet, Sara couldn't help but fall silently in that vortex.But Ava, where's Ava?[Not good at introductions, my apologies.]





	1. Absence

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time trying to write something of my own, so I'm not really sure about the result.  
> So, please: any kind of suggestions and hints are gladly accepted.  
> I'd be happy to read comments on this introductory chapter, criticism is what makes me want to write more and refine. 
> 
> Also: English is not my first language so it'll probably end up being a nonsensical mess, sorry about that.

Ava didn't call that day.  
Ava hadn't called all week, actually.  
Sara was trying not to think about it, but she was somewhat worried. Why would she?  
She hadn't realized how all this situation affected her until she yelled at Zari after she said that the dinner was ready. She then went to her quarters, feeling guilty, and stayed there staring at the paleness of the wall for God knows how long.

A high-pitched sound woke her up: her neck hurt, her left arm numb, her head against the cold surface of her desk. She cursed silently trying to get up.

"An incoming call from Agent Sharpe, Captain". Sara fastly stood still trying to process the words the AI just said.  
"What time is it, Gideon?"  
"It would be three in the morning".

She shook her head, focusing on the sound. It was like she just got what the AI said moments before: it was Ava, and she was calling.  
"Put her on, Gideon" her voice was raspy but energetic. Her hands were shaking, her body tense, restless eyes.

She could feel her heart rate in her palms, her cheeks warm.  
The adrenaline was going up. She was thinking fast, she was mad and relieved.

Ava wasn't supposed to call her everyday. Honestly, she didn't have to call at all. There was this part of Sara conscious of the fact that her being mad was just illogical. Yet she couldn't help it.  
She wanted to know why. Ava had no right, she had no right to play with her mind, with her strenght. She just didn't.  
And this made Sara ball her hands in tight fists, cracking knuckles.  
She didn't know how to explain it, trying to recollect herself shifting from one foot to the other.

Then it hit her: it was three in the morning.  
Eyes now wide, as she stood waiting for Ava's face to pop up.  
Something was off, it was taking too long.

"Gideon, what's the problem?"  
"Nothing Captain, you're on"

Sara frowned, what kind of joke was that?  
"Av-"  
"Miss Lance" - it was a whisper, throaty voice, breathless - "I'm sorry to call you this time of the night", the voice continued, gasping. She could hear loud noises as the agent was speaking, like far and consecutive little explotions.  
"What happened, Gary?" she was nervous. All the adrenaline she had accumulated moments before was making her face burn and as the agent took time to reply she became more and more agitated.  
"I'm not sure" - another noise, _was that a gunshot?_  
"Gary?" - her voice was trembling, at this point she didn't care about her composure - "where are you? Where is Ava?"

"Agent Sharpe has been taken."


	2. Déchirée

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rip, Ava, and a smothering decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was studying something about the Medieval history of Europe when I stumbled across this chapter I had halfway written and I decided to give up on my dear Justinian and completing what I had started.  
> Again, I'm sorry for the not-so-subtle grammatical errors that you may run into, and I would like to thank anyone who commented on the first "chapter" I posted, I really appreciate it. 
> 
> Have a good read!

“It was necessary.” - the voice echoed in the room. It was aseptic, pretty much minimalist. The poor light hid his face: sure he was wearing his forced-concerned expression. She’s always wondered, always tried to analize his features, to fragment his tone and to put the little pieces she had together and throw them on a canvas she could look at, admire in one way or another. She needed to see, to touch the edges of his picture, to feel the volume of his shape.

She had always been like that, she had always had this ability, _or – at least – it was what she thought._  
She needed to do so, to survive; but, after all, it wasn’t worth the effort.

She ended up hating herself.  
She was aware of the impact she had on the others, of her standoffish attitude, her _nearly_ mechanical demeanour. She often looked at her reflection, studied her face: the slight wrinkles around the line of her mouth, the distance between her brow and the hairline, the form of her nose. She avoided her eyes, she couldn’t stand the glare: her own glare. She could feel how judgemental they were, how they squeezed her waist and sucked the air stored up in her lungs, punched her hips and kicked her legs.

They were emotionless creatures capable of tearing apart everything they found on their way. So that she wasn’t surprised to hear stories about herself, she wasn’t surprised of the fear she could easily see in the agents’ eyes as she passed by in the hallways of the Bureau or the irritation she could spot in the _Captain_ during their altercations – _it was a mutual feeling, she had to admit_.

What surprised her was the concern. His concern.  
He always seemed to care _a little bit too much_ about her, _a little bit too much_ for her to handle. She wasn’t prepared. At the Academy they didn’t teach you how to face this kind of situations: she was surely capable to fight an army of _legionnaires_ , or to survive if stranded in some hostile environment. But she was not trained to face relationships, to get people.  
So she came to the conclusion that it was due to their mission, their job. He was trying to be polite, respectful. And she appreciated it, she just couldn’t get it.  
  
“Was it?”, a whisper. What for? They were alone, no one could hear them. Actually, she was sure that no one even knew that that place existed. Yet, they were close, and he was whispering. She could feel the light tremble of his hand that made the air between the two bodies shift, causing little shiver up her spine. He was nervous, and again, she couldn’t tell why.  
  
“You know it was.” - a line firmly delivered. 

“I suppose I do.” - he moved to face her even though they couldn’t see each other. She could feel his breath on her cheeks: she could imagine his position in the room, in front of her.

“But I can’t understand why, Ava!” - hesitant, pleading. 

“I can’t understand the way many things work, yet I’m here, not complaining at all.” - she was smiling while she let her words leave her tongue, her chords vibrate.  
He chuckled a little, she could hear his steps. He was now about a metre or two from her. The warmth she could sense due to the closeness of his body was gone.

“Ava, you’re one, if not the most brilliant person I’ve ever met in my entire life, I don’t think there’s something you couldn’t sort out.”, he sounded like he had been knowing her his entire life. Like a brother, or a father. She had always found his voice reassuring, always dived in the way he articulated the words, he explained a mission, he was kind to her.

“We both know why.” – she was whispering as well, to push the hurtful noises she could hear in her chest away.

“Ava… We’ve already been through this, I-“

“This isn’t the time, Rip. You need to go back to the Bureau, they need their Director.” – she tried to make her voice as calm as possible, but she failed, and it ended up cracking at some point, as if she was breathless.

“You’re the Director, for God’s sake!” – his tone higher, he was in front of her again. Closer than before, his hands on her shoulders and now she was sure that the trembling she felt moments before wasn’t something she imagined but a fact. The coldness of his hands filtered through the fabric of her shirt, through the skin of her shoulder, pinching the muscles, trying to break her humerus – “You… We could figure it out. We could think of something. We can go through this together. You are _too critical_ to-“

“You can easily go back there and pick another one, there would be no loss at all.” – this time she felt anger, her hands gripped his and brushed them off. She adjusted her pants, rubbed her palms on the blue cottoned tissue feeling how the sweat was absorbed by it. The air thinner, her head dizzier. Blurred figures around her. She focused on her breathing, a panic attack was not the ideal.

“I guess I deserve this.” – he didn’t approach her again, as if he understood her thoughts, or maybe it was distress – “But you don’t have to do this just to prove a point, you’re better than this!”

“Am I?” – she could taste bitterness, bile piled up in the back of her tongue – “If we weren’t running out of time, I would have asked you how many times you had to do the same speech, how many times you had to look at the same eyes, how many times you had to make your argumentations sound convincing, how many times you had to-“

“To see you die.” – his hiss unmatched his state – “Listen, Ava. I get it. I know, and I’m sorry, I’m terribly sorry. But don’t doubt my words, don’t even th-“

“It takes you a lot of courage to ask me that” – she remembers the moment her eyes sled on on the monitor of her computer, the amount of informations her brain was dialing in and the twirls in her stomach that made her catch the rectangular bin underneath her desk. She thought more than once of moving it, she couldn’t see its use. In that moment she was happy she didn’t.  
As soon as she collected herself, she rushed to his office. His eyes on his files as he tried to make up some explanation, some excuse.  
She didn’t ask why, she didn’t need to. She could get it, she just… To be honest, she dind’t know what she wanted.  
She asked him to take her to the place, to where she was from.  
He tried to argue, but he couldn’t and he easily gave in. 

It didn’t take long.  
When they came back, he tried to stop her clinching her wrist tightly, it almost hurt.  
_Almost_.  
She stopped. They were silent, she dind’t turn. Her head hollowed in her shoulder, soft tears caressing her cheeks: a reminder that she could still feel, she could react. Except from the fact that she couldn’t.  
He moved closer untangling his fingers from her hand. As soon as the contact was lost, she paced to her office.

It was a week prior, they hadn’t talked about it since.  
  
Her reminiscences swept away by the noise of Rip’s courier. An S.O.S. call. They surely found out. There was no time.

“I suggest you to go.” – she didn’t look at him. She didn’t need to.

“Ava, please, I-“ – his words surmounted by the noise, again. He sighed heavily, as if he was evaluating his options. He straightned his posture, cleared his throat. He motioned to push the button on his courier – “I see this as a farewell, then.”  
“You should be pretty accoustumed to it, I suppose.” – she looked up, she was smiling, someone would have thought of it as a form of teasing, but it wasn’t.  
“I will never.” – his voice weary. He couldn’t see her figure in the dark, but he found the way to snare her eyes, to crack a little that armour she had pulled up.

They couldn’t tell how long they stayed like that: it could have been minutes, it could have been hours. And again, the demanding device ripped the air and bounced on the walls knocking on their eardrums. It was soon followed by the familiar sound of an opened portal.  
The light coming from it showed the paleness surrounding, the lack of fornitures and the little window that divided Ava with whatever was outside.  
  
“I-uhm-, I hope to see you again, Direct-, Ava.” – She smiled softly at his stumbling. It wasn’t something she had seen often and she was _kinda_ happy it was one of the last things she was going to see.

“Goodbye, Director Hunter.”  


End file.
